Henry wrote:"“Stepovers, tricks, that’s not the game. The game is what Thomas Muller is doing. If I had a son right now, playing, I would say to him ‘look at them, look at [Franck] Ribery, look at Muller.’ What Ronaldo does, and Messi, they’re just freaks. Don’t try to copy those guys. You can copy from Ribery, you can copy from Thomas Muller. What he did at the World Cup, people don’t talk about it. They don’t talk about it, but they should talk about it. He plays the game the right way: he defends, he attacks, he controls the ball when he has to control it, he reverses when he has to reverse it. When he has to finish, he’ll finish. He doesn’t do stepovers, but when he has to perform, he performs. He does what the game asks him to do.”"

Henry wrote:"“Stepovers, tricks, that’s not the game. The game is what Thomas Muller is doing. If I had a son right now, playing, I would say to him ‘look at them, look at [Franck] Ribery, look at Muller.’ What Ronaldo does, and Messi, they’re just freaks. Don’t try to copy those guys. You can copy from Ribery, you can copy from Thomas Muller. What he did at the World Cup, people don’t talk about it. They don’t talk about it, but they should talk about it. He plays the game the right way: he defends, he attacks, he controls the ball when he has to control it, he reverses when he has to reverse it. When he has to finish, he’ll finish. He doesn’t do stepovers, but when he has to perform, he performs. He does what the game asks him to do.”"

I started League back in december . I play on eune . My younger brother tried to convince me to join like 2 years ago , but for some reason i didn't like the game back then . The only good it came of it , is that when i returned i had Cassiopeia and a skin of hers , given to the greeks for some reason. . Anyway , now it's almost all i play lately and i am generally having a lot of fun getting to know this game. (never played any mobas in the past , tho i always had a thing for single-player strategic games)

So , i read the thread and i see you're a very experienced player in Lol . I've read some of your advices and i found them very usefull . So basically , could you help me a bit with getting to understand some things i want ? My little bro is pretty knowledgeable too about many champs and mechanics and other things and i always heed and respect his advice , but seeing you've been playing this game and "mobas" in particular for quite some time , i would value your advice and opinion on League stuff as gold. So , if you have the time at some point , i would really appreciate it if you could answer me a few questions i have and hear any advice you have to offer.

1. My favourite champions are : Draven . Shaco . Cassiopeia . Aatrox . Brand . Talon . Kha Sex . Fiddles . What do you think of my favourite bunch? I know i need to get me some supports and tanks too. Are these good enough picks to advance in the game ? I "learned the game" through Draven(bot) , Shaco(jungle) and Cassiopeia(mid) , champs which are generally considered as hard champions to master. Do i have to put them aside for a while and grab some easier champs with regards to their mechanics / knowledge-of-the-game , such as Garen , Teemo (..) , Ashe e.t.c , so i could continue to learn about and master the very basics faster ? Or should i keep playing what i like? Or both eventually ?

2 . Draven is my main , or at the very least , the one i plan to main and he's that one champ that i trully enjoy playing , every single time. But here's my dilemma. I've learned most stuff through the game with Cass and i am ridiculously comfortable with her and tbh i enjoy the mid lane more than any other lane. I understand her harass potential and i am very pragmatic with my play with her . I can also farm very well with her(at least i think i do). I think i have the most potential with Cassiopeia , with my current level of skill and experience. What would be your advice on this ? Mainly on the point of advancing at ranked , after i feel ready to join . On which champ should i insist ? Does it matter ?

3 . I am very , very , VERY , patient person. I recently reached lvl 30 , without playing a single normal game. The reason i did that , is because i felt i didn't want to give my opponents any sort of advantage , like my own lack of experience or lack of runes and masteries. So i waited. I currently have over 450 wins against A.I and i learned a lot of champions through it , many of their abilities , advantages and disadvantages , strengths and weaknessess and many other usefull stuff. Do you think i actually did? Was that kind of experience worth it? I've also spent some time to read , watch stuff and study about the game , so i could understand it and the opponents better. The bot games are unloseable for me anymore , with any champ i try. I just always do well enough , or snowball really hard like i did with Kha just the 2nd time i played him , i had 43 kills. How should i procceed from here on ?

4 . I've played just 3 normal games so far and i have won all 3 of them , as Draven. My first normal game i ended up having 19 kills , 12 deaths and 14-15 assists. However , after a good start , i stopped there and got back to bot training again , because i wanted to practise some more on other champions and generally speaking , i didn't trully feel ready even after 3 wins in a row . Any good advice on how to procceed in normals? And much more importantly , which is the milestone i should be aiming for with normal games before ranked? Like i said , patience is a virtue i trully vouch for and so , any number you find is generally best / accepted , it will become my target , however long it takes.

5. For fighters i have Aatrox as my main pick top and Garen. Anything you could tell me about fighters. Anything . I don't know when to carry ; when to tank ; why should i carry when others could carry better ? What's the point of tanking with a fighter when i can get a tank? Please enlighten me. I am very unsure about this role. I like Aatrox mostly , then Darius .The rest i don't care , but any advice or suggestion is welcomed.

6 . I have many questions , but this is already too long. I've been hearing here and there about mmr? Is that my win-lose ratio? So i have like 3 games 3 wins , does that mean i have a good mmr? Or is it simply poor because of the low number of matches i have? More importantly , if i entered ranked tomorrow and say i did , 7-3 in provisionals ? Where would i end up , more or less?(i won't enter ranked any time soon , just i am curious)

I know it's a long post , but i am very interested in what you have to say , i don't know you well on the forums but i see you are a veteran gamer in general and i would appreciate your opinion.

P.S Anybody in the forum who's been playing in Eune and wants to add me , my summoners name is Dante Diavolo .

I started League back in december . I play on eune . My younger brother tried to convince me to join like 2 years ago , but for some reason i didn't like the game back then . The only good it came of it , is that when i returned i had Cassiopeia and a skin of hers , given to the greeks for some reason. . Anyway , now it's almost all i play lately and i am generally having a lot of fun getting to know this game. (never played any mobas in the past , tho i always had a thing for single-player strategic games)

So , i read the thread and i see you're a very experienced player in Lol . I've read some of your advices and i found them very usefull . So basically , could you help me a bit with getting to understand some things i want ? My little bro is pretty knowledgeable too about many champs and mechanics and other things and i always heed and respect his advice , but seeing you've been playing this game and "mobas" in particular for quite some time , i would value your advice and opinion on League stuff as gold. So , if you have the time at some point , i would really appreciate it if you could answer me a few questions i have and hear any advice you have to offer.

1. My favourite champions are : Draven . Shaco . Cassiopeia . Aatrox . Brand . Talon . Kha Sex . Fiddles . What do you think of my favourite bunch? I know i need to get me some supports and tanks too. Are these good enough picks to advance in the game ? I "learned the game" through Draven(bot) , Shaco(jungle) and Cassiopeia(mid) , champs which are generally considered as hard champions to master. Do i have to put them aside for a while and grab some easier champs with regards to their mechanics / knowledge-of-the-game , such as Garen , Teemo (..) , Ashe e.t.c , so i could continue to learn about and master the very basics faster ? Or should i keep playing what i like? Or both eventually ?

2 . Draven is my main , or at the very least , the one i plan to main and he's that one champ that i trully enjoy playing , every single time. But here's my dilemma. I've learned most stuff through the game with Cass and i am ridiculously comfortable with her and tbh i enjoy the mid lane more than any other lane. I understand her harass potential and i am very pragmatic with my play with her . I can also farm very well with her(at least i think i do). I think i have the most potential with Cassiopeia , with my current level of skill and experience. What would be your advice on this ? Mainly on the point of advancing at ranked , after i feel ready to join . On which champ should i insist ? Does it matter ?

3 . I am very , very , VERY , patient person. I recently reached lvl 30 , without playing a single normal game. The reason i did that , is because i felt i didn't want to give my opponents any sort of advantage , like my own lack of experience or lack of runes and masteries. So i waited. I currently have over 450 wins against A.I and i learned a lot of champions through it , many of their abilities , advantages and disadvantages , strengths and weaknessess and many other usefull stuff. Do you think i actually did? Was that kind of experience worth it? I've also spent some time to read , watch stuff and study about the game , so i could understand it and the opponents better. The bot games are unloseable for me anymore , with any champ i try. I just always do well enough , or snowball really hard like i did with Kha just the 2nd time i played him , i had 43 kills. How should i procceed from here on ?

4 . I've played just 3 normal games so far and i have won all 3 of them , as Draven. My first normal game i ended up having 19 kills , 12 deaths and 14-15 assists. However , after a good start , i stopped there and got back to bot training again , because i wanted to practise some more on other champions and generally speaking , i didn't trully feel ready even after 3 wins in a row . Any good advice on how to procceed in normals? And much more importantly , which is the milestone i should be aiming for with normal games before ranked? Like i said , patience is a virtue i trully vouch for and so , any number you find is generally best / accepted , it will become my target , however long it takes.

5. For fighters i have Aatrox as my main pick top and Garen. Anything you could tell me about fighters. Anything . I don't know when to carry ; when to tank ; why should i carry when others could carry better ? What's the point of tanking with a fighter when i can get a tank? Please enlighten me. I am very unsure about this role. I like Aatrox mostly , then Darius .The rest i don't care , but any advice or suggestion is welcomed.

6 . I have many questions , but this is already too long. I've been hearing here and there about mmr? Is that my win-lose ratio? So i have like 3 games 3 wins , does that mean i have a good mmr? Or is it simply poor because of the low number of matches i have? More importantly , if i entered ranked tomorrow and say i did , 7-3 in provisionals ? Where would i end up , more or less?(i won't enter ranked any time soon , just i am curious)

I know it's a long post , but i am very interested in what you have to say , i don't know you well on the forums but i see you are a veteran gamer in general and i would appreciate your opinion.

P.S Anybody in the forum who's been playing in Eune and wants to add me , my summoners name is Dante Diavolo .

1&2. First if you have truly mastered a champion it doesn't really matter what their strengths and weaknesses are if you know how to play with the strengths and around the weaknesses and when to just pick an alternative. 4 of your team mates that have hard initiates and want 5v5 brawls fully engaged teamfights? Then Nidalee (Split-push/Poker) is not a great idea. I see your favourites are mostly along the lines of high risk/high reward and mechanically challenging. If you can handle it by then by all means go for them.

3. You're on the right path, but you need to catch-up in your experience against human players, just play normals (great for overall practice), ARAMs great for learning siege and teamfight situations) and Dominion (great for skirmishing) against humans and gain experience. I would even say stop playing against the AI at this, only in situations where you need to learn a hero from 0. LoL, while simple in most respects is an incredibly complex game which can only be learned through experience/study and playing against bots might get you into some bad habits.

4. Not exactly answering your question but I'm going to give you one of the most important piece of advice you'll get related to LoL. Do not make your goal for each game to win the game. Sounds counter-intuitive right? The thing is you're also dependant on 4 other players to win the game and if they are bad, make mistakes, do stupid things your instinctual reaction will be to treat them as enemies because they are standing in the way of your goal. MOBA/ARTS are inherently toxic because of this (the time people invest into each game also plays a massive factor) Depending on how you react to pressure/stress your mentality should always be, what could I have done to win this game? From my own experience, from being bad and playing with good players to being good and playing with bad players there is always room for self-improvement and every game can be won single-handedly when the overall level of play in the game isn't high. As soon as you go down the path of blaming your team-mates you start deferring your own responsibilities and don't think about what you could have done. Do not berate your team-mates when they do something bad, instead, praise them for doing something good, what this does is in their minds, they just impressed you and they want to continue impressing you.

Make your goals personal, for example with Draven one of your goals could be to catch every axe, average 10 CS a minute (that's killing 5 of the 6 minions from each wave), focusing the right targets in teamfights etc. For Cass your goals could be to never miss an E (i.e. hitting an unpoisoned target) landing your skillshots, using your ult in the right moments in fights etc.

5. That's more of a question of overall item choices and that's always situational, nothing is set in stone. Sure, there are some core items for each champ, and some roles atm just get the same set of items. In most situations your first item should be about winning your lane, and most "fighters" top will get 1, maybe two damage items and then build tanky items depending on the enemy team composition because usually you will transition from 1v1ing the enemy top laner to killing their mid/adcarry and since mids/adcarries don't build defensive most of the time you usually don't need to build even more damage. Garen is in most situations a counter-pick to win lane and deny the the enemy. A Riven will just collapse and burst into tears against a Garen who knows what he's doing.

6. MMR is basically ELO or in more familiar terms, FIFA International ranking points/UEFA co-efficient. You have one for every queue. If you only just started playing normals at level 30 and won 3 games straight, there is an extremely high probability that you will be matched against/with other players who are lvl 30 and are 3-0. It's a system where the more games you play, the more likely you're going to be matched up against players of your own skill level. This is where a lot of toxicity happens in early ranked because because people think they are better than they are because they do decently in normal games, at their normal MMR but then enter ranked and their first games are against players better than them.

As for playing ranked/normals you have to ask yourself, what do you actually stand to lose? In ranked people will be far more toxic if you're losing there's the risk of that, there's also the EGO hurt if you get placed into Bronze 5 etc. but like in every other competitive activity, you learn the most from your losses.

The best thing for self-improvement is to get LoLReplay and watch yourself. You'll be able to see mistakes you don't notice while playing and you're going to be able to think next game, "i must work on that" etc.

Sorry I didn't answer all of your questions directly but I hoped I could be of some help anyway.

_________________

Henry wrote:"“Stepovers, tricks, that’s not the game. The game is what Thomas Muller is doing. If I had a son right now, playing, I would say to him ‘look at them, look at [Franck] Ribery, look at Muller.’ What Ronaldo does, and Messi, they’re just freaks. Don’t try to copy those guys. You can copy from Ribery, you can copy from Thomas Muller. What he did at the World Cup, people don’t talk about it. They don’t talk about it, but they should talk about it. He plays the game the right way: he defends, he attacks, he controls the ball when he has to control it, he reverses when he has to reverse it. When he has to finish, he’ll finish. He doesn’t do stepovers, but when he has to perform, he performs. He does what the game asks him to do.”"

Thank you so much Phritz. From what i understand , the advice and info you gave me , is even better than the questions i initially asked.

As for my behaviour when playing , well so far i've been mostly cool enough and i almost never flame or rage at anybody and in all the 3 normal games i played , it was a pleasant experience for me and my teammates. I have that green badge already , as a result of my work with teammates and do all what you suggested already ; whether it's a bot game or a normal one. I am always very calm , very concentrated and my goal is , despite my competitive nature , to have fun in the game. With that said , i will think twice on what you said , about winning and will keep your advice moving on , as to what happens later .

As for the ranked Ego you talked about , i currently have no ego because i've done nothing to have an ego in lol yet . Eventually , even if/when i end up in Bronze , i ll just look to climb up. Admittedly , that's what i think now , but being honest here , i trully don't mind where i start , but how i will climb the ladders. A good challenge is fascinating to me , i don't seek to snowball noobs when i become better at the game , or have people being impressed with my plays .

Now , i will stop playing against bots that often . I was already suspecting that enough is enough , but the only reason i kept going was to improve my mechanics ; but obviously , what you said about making bad habits , is probably more than accurate and i should just minimize time spent there.

So i will focus on normals like you suggested and see how it goes. Thanks for the advice once again , i will look to transfer all of it into my plays. About lolreplay haven't even heard about it . That's great news for me , though i have to think about how i will be using it , lol is on it's own time consuming , adding that into the mix will make things complicated.

Henry wrote:"“Stepovers, tricks, that’s not the game. The game is what Thomas Muller is doing. If I had a son right now, playing, I would say to him ‘look at them, look at [Franck] Ribery, look at Muller.’ What Ronaldo does, and Messi, they’re just freaks. Don’t try to copy those guys. You can copy from Ribery, you can copy from Thomas Muller. What he did at the World Cup, people don’t talk about it. They don’t talk about it, but they should talk about it. He plays the game the right way: he defends, he attacks, he controls the ball when he has to control it, he reverses when he has to reverse it. When he has to finish, he’ll finish. He doesn’t do stepovers, but when he has to perform, he performs. He does what the game asks him to do.”"

Henry wrote:"“Stepovers, tricks, that’s not the game. The game is what Thomas Muller is doing. If I had a son right now, playing, I would say to him ‘look at them, look at [Franck] Ribery, look at Muller.’ What Ronaldo does, and Messi, they’re just freaks. Don’t try to copy those guys. You can copy from Ribery, you can copy from Thomas Muller. What he did at the World Cup, people don’t talk about it. They don’t talk about it, but they should talk about it. He plays the game the right way: he defends, he attacks, he controls the ball when he has to control it, he reverses when he has to reverse it. When he has to finish, he’ll finish. He doesn’t do stepovers, but when he has to perform, he performs. He does what the game asks him to do.”"

Henry wrote:"“Stepovers, tricks, that’s not the game. The game is what Thomas Muller is doing. If I had a son right now, playing, I would say to him ‘look at them, look at [Franck] Ribery, look at Muller.’ What Ronaldo does, and Messi, they’re just freaks. Don’t try to copy those guys. You can copy from Ribery, you can copy from Thomas Muller. What he did at the World Cup, people don’t talk about it. They don’t talk about it, but they should talk about it. He plays the game the right way: he defends, he attacks, he controls the ball when he has to control it, he reverses when he has to reverse it. When he has to finish, he’ll finish. He doesn’t do stepovers, but when he has to perform, he performs. He does what the game asks him to do.”"

Henry wrote:"“Stepovers, tricks, that’s not the game. The game is what Thomas Muller is doing. If I had a son right now, playing, I would say to him ‘look at them, look at [Franck] Ribery, look at Muller.’ What Ronaldo does, and Messi, they’re just freaks. Don’t try to copy those guys. You can copy from Ribery, you can copy from Thomas Muller. What he did at the World Cup, people don’t talk about it. They don’t talk about it, but they should talk about it. He plays the game the right way: he defends, he attacks, he controls the ball when he has to control it, he reverses when he has to reverse it. When he has to finish, he’ll finish. He doesn’t do stepovers, but when he has to perform, he performs. He does what the game asks him to do.”"

Hey Phritz , what's up . I am playing strictly normals like you've suggested . Now i am at 130 wins and 124 defeats . I learned the basics of play for all roles , except maybe support i don't even have 10 full games . Though i am still undefeated as Thresh , 4 out of 4

Anyway , i've had some dudes who strongly tried to persuade me to get into ranked . Well , at one point , i had 12-13 wins more than my defeats and in general lines , i often had streaks of wins . I was playing with gold and silver players each game at some point and it got me thinking , if i can handle myself against them in normals , why not in a ranked game where my teammates will be much more focused to win games . Do you think i should get into it , because i remember you said one normaly needs more wins than that.

Well here's the thing , most of the time , i've been playing with a cousin of mine who's not so good at lol (just yesterday he hit 30 after all this time), we just play together for the lulz. Anyway , i remember you saying no matter how bad my team is , when the level of the opponent isn't high one could win said game by himself. Yet, at best i have managed to carry half of these games , even though in almost all of them i end up having a positive score compared to the others who fed , or simply i came so close but we still lost . Sometimes i have my bad games as well , obviously.

Should i enter ranked? Whenever i play alone and more or less i get to play with players of my skill and experience , very often i win and almost always i play above average , my bad games when i go solo are rare. Having said all that , i don't feel i am ready , even though i've won lanes against many ranked players and sometimes these were golds (not gold 1).

Something last and quick , what do you think of Aatrox? Aatrox has become the champ that won me most of my games , when at some point i didn't even get what top is suppose to be . It took a lot of ridicule from opponents (once someone told me that tutorial was more difficult than me ) , many defeats and many hours of practise , but i got to the point where i've been 3+ kills up , with 100 cs at 12-13 minutes in the game . Even when i lose games with Aatrox , i never , never , feed. I've carried crazy games with Aatrox , yet all i hear from people is that he sucks , isn't the meta , too weak , nah..

Yeh , it felt like that at first when i followed guides and shit. Since then i found my own way with Aatrox and i must say , Aatrox seems to me pretty much OP in the hands of a tactical player. I say tactical because whenever i play Aatrox , i still haven't managed this with any other champ , i have a plan for everything , whatever it may occur or whoever is my opponent. I've won against Rivens , Renektons , recently (fotm?) Jax , Darius , even Teemos, which is pretty bad opponent for Aatrox . One of my best moments was when i won the top lane against a duo premade of Ziggs-Heimerdinger. It is quite impossible to deal with that , but somehow i did 2 double kills and roflstomped the entire game.

Still when i say to most that the champ i do best is Aatrox , they don't seem particularly impressed with whatever i say. What do you think about Aatrox?(i've put him aside recently to practise other champs)

O daim, completely missed there being a new post in this thread, sorry. I'll get back to you when I have more time to write more, for now Ill just assure you that Aatrox is nowhere near trash tier xD

_________________

Henry wrote:"“Stepovers, tricks, that’s not the game. The game is what Thomas Muller is doing. If I had a son right now, playing, I would say to him ‘look at them, look at [Franck] Ribery, look at Muller.’ What Ronaldo does, and Messi, they’re just freaks. Don’t try to copy those guys. You can copy from Ribery, you can copy from Thomas Muller. What he did at the World Cup, people don’t talk about it. They don’t talk about it, but they should talk about it. He plays the game the right way: he defends, he attacks, he controls the ball when he has to control it, he reverses when he has to reverse it. When he has to finish, he’ll finish. He doesn’t do stepovers, but when he has to perform, he performs. He does what the game asks him to do.”"

Me? Diamond? No way, I'm far too casual to do that - I might go for it at the end of the season though because I have laned against high diamond 1 players in ranked 5's and can hold my own, the only champs I'd be able to consistently play at high diamond 1 are Janna and Shyvana.

I might tryhard for diamond at end of the season though.

New OGN Champions intro:

Dat Samsung blue shot

_________________

Henry wrote:"“Stepovers, tricks, that’s not the game. The game is what Thomas Muller is doing. If I had a son right now, playing, I would say to him ‘look at them, look at [Franck] Ribery, look at Muller.’ What Ronaldo does, and Messi, they’re just freaks. Don’t try to copy those guys. You can copy from Ribery, you can copy from Thomas Muller. What he did at the World Cup, people don’t talk about it. They don’t talk about it, but they should talk about it. He plays the game the right way: he defends, he attacks, he controls the ball when he has to control it, he reverses when he has to reverse it. When he has to finish, he’ll finish. He doesn’t do stepovers, but when he has to perform, he performs. He does what the game asks him to do.”"

I've started watching some competitive games in the LCS. What are things I should know while watching? What different tournaments are there? What is the biggest title you can win as a team in LoL? What are some of the best teams in LoL?

Well the biggest tourney of all is of course the World Championships in September & October. This year the final is being held in none other than Sangam Stadium (Venue of the 2002 FIFA World Cup Final) on the 19th of October. The top 3 teams from Korea, NA, EU West and China will be joined by 2 teams from South East Asia & Taiwan and 2 Wild Cards from Brazil vs Latin America and Turkey vs Oceania vs CIS (ex-USSR states)

OGN's The Champions is Korea's highest LoL League. Three 16-team tournaments are held a year (Winter, Spring and Summer) (4x4 round robin group stage featuring best of 2's followed by best of 5 play-offs). To qualify for the World Championships teams earn circuit points based on their results over the 3 tournaments (and NLB Diamond League - the Korean equivalent of the Europa League).

Since competitive gaming is taken far more seriously in Korea the Korean teams are way ahead in their level of play. SK Telekom T1, current world champions and champions of OGN Summer 2013 and Winter 2014 struggled to even get out of the group stages in Spring 2014 but managed to sweep the Allstar 2014 tournament (Basically a Confederations Cup affair) tournament without even breaking a sweat.

more on signicant players, teams, toruneys later

_________________

Henry wrote:"“Stepovers, tricks, that’s not the game. The game is what Thomas Muller is doing. If I had a son right now, playing, I would say to him ‘look at them, look at [Franck] Ribery, look at Muller.’ What Ronaldo does, and Messi, they’re just freaks. Don’t try to copy those guys. You can copy from Ribery, you can copy from Thomas Muller. What he did at the World Cup, people don’t talk about it. They don’t talk about it, but they should talk about it. He plays the game the right way: he defends, he attacks, he controls the ball when he has to control it, he reverses when he has to reverse it. When he has to finish, he’ll finish. He doesn’t do stepovers, but when he has to perform, he performs. He does what the game asks him to do.”"